HALIFAX - Nova Scotia is starting a mumps immunization program for health-care workers as an outbreak of the virus in the province climbed in the last week by 19 confirmed cases to 222 on Friday.
The immunization program will begin as early as next week with roughly 40,000 doses of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine being made available to health-care workers. A week ago, there were 203 confirmed cases of the virus in Nova Scotia.
Dr. Shelly Sarwal, the province's medical officer of health, said the vaccination program will help the maintain health services in the province.
"We feel this is an important public health measure,'' Sarwal said in a news release. "A vaccination campaign will not stop the outbreak, but what it will do is help to manage absenteeism in health-care workers as a result of the mumps, and therefore help sustain the health-care system for Nova Scotians.''
Since the beginning of the outbreak in February, 222 cases of mumps have been reported across Nova Scotia. As of last Friday, there had been 34 reported cases in New Brunswick and one confirmed case in Prince Edward Island.
Last week, health officials in Ontario confirmed three cases there as Canada's mumps outbreak moved out of the Maritimes.
The number of new cases in the Halifax region is declining, while the number of new cases across the province increased from last week. Health officials predicted the decline in the Halifax area as university students, where the outbreak is believed to have begun, returned home for the summer.
Public health officials said they spoke this week with their counterparts in the United States and the United Kingdom about lessons learned from management of mumps outbreaks in those countries.
Nova Scotia is also looking at an immunization program for the university-age population.
Ontario's Ministry of Health and Long-term Care said last week that the province's three confirmed cases -- in the Ottawa, York and Waterloo public health units -- can all be linked to the Nova Scotia outbreak.
People are being advised to watch for patients that have mumps-like symptoms. These include aches, pains, fever, loss of appetite and, in about 40 per cent of cases, the hugely swollen saliva glands that give mumps its characteristic chipmunk-cheek look.
The Nova Scotia outbreak, which began in the third week of February, is the province's third in two years. It is by far the largest; the earlier outbreaks, in 2005, involved 13 and 19 cases respectively.
It has been fuelled by a pool of susceptible young adults. Sarwal has said authorities believe many of the province's cases were vaccinated with MMR in childhood, but received only one dose.
The one-dose schedule for the MMR vaccine was adequate to protect many people. If it had not been, this outbreak would be much larger. But it's now known one dose doesn't protect everyone and MMR is now given in two doses.
University dormitories and crowded student apartments make for easy spread of the virus among susceptible young adults. When they move home, however, they spend more time around adults, most of whom would have had mumps in childhood and would be immune.
